15 Oct 2011

Word on the Street, Halifax 2011

This Sunday you are all once more invited as the Word on the Street festival celebrates literacy and the written word on the Halifax Waterfront. The Halifax festival was first held in 1995 on Spring Garden Road and attracted over 10,000 people.  It was, by any standards, an enormous success.  Spring Garden Road was closed off and tents, booths and stalls spanned over three blocks.  Year after year, people have continued to flock to this free literary festival of books and words.

However, Nova Scotia weather is notoriously unpredictable, and paper and water don’t mix.  After the festival in 2000 was rained out, it was moved inside, first to Pier 20 and then to the Cunard Centre, where it has continued to flourish.  But organizers always believed that an outdoor festival has a flavour that is truly special and last year The Word went back to the Streets under the trees at Victoria Park.
This year is an exciting time of change for the festival as it shifts once again to where Executive Director Colleen Ritchie hopes will be a more permanent home.  In true Maritime tradition, the festival is moving to the Halifax Waterfront.  On Sunday, September 25th, the spaces in and around the Maritime Museum will be hopping. There will be author readings aboard the CSS Acadia.  Sheree Fitch (There Were Monkeys In My Kitchen), Ron Lightburn (Juba This, Juba That) Hugh MacDonald (Chung Lee Loves Lobsters) and Doretta Groenendyk (Thank You for My Bed), will host readings on Theodore Tugboat for the small people among us, and there will be readings on the ferry for the older folk. And that’s just the beginning! 

For the first time, Word on the Street will cross the harbour.  Exhibits and the Graphic Novel workshop will be held at Alderney Landing.  “It’s a start”, says Ritchie, “and we hope to continue to build and expand the Dartmouth site in future years.  It’s important that the festival be accessible to everyone.  And it’s all free”, she emphasizes.

The theme for this year’s festival is “The Book that Got Me Hooked!”  Can you remember the name of the book that first turned you on to reading?  The one you couldn’t put down?  The one that kept you up late, reading with a flashlight under the covers?

The Halifax Waterfront will be abuzz this weekend.  It is an inspired choice.  Partnerships with the Francophone Cultural Festival and the African Diaspora Heritage Trail Conference will infuse a multicultural flavour.  The vibrant, colourful booths of the International African Bazaar at Sackville Landing from 22nd to 25th will offer a taste of Africa as part of the seventh African Diaspora Heritage Trail Conference.  Guest speakers at that conference include Lawrence Hill, author of the best-seller, The Book of Negroes.

At Queen’s Landing from Sept 23 – 25, the Francophone Cultural Festival will be celebrating the diversity of its community. Acadian, Quebec and African music will have visitors dancing, while a visual arts exhibition, a literary cafĂ©, and Acadian and Lebanese food will offer the taste and sights of the diversity of French culture.  And there’s no admission charge!

There are some out there who have written novels, poems or a children’s book.  You know who you are! It’s time to Pitch the Publisher!  Sponsored by the Atlantic Publishers Marketing Association, a panel of publishers at Word on the Street will give feedback and make suggestions on your work. More than one book has been published this way, so dust off those manuscripts and register for your time slot (pre-register by email: apma.admin@atlanticpublishers.ca or call 902 420-0711. You’ve done the work, so what do you have to lose!  

No literary festival would be complete without writers and the lineup this year reads like a Who’s Who of local and national authors. George Elliot Clarke, Shauntay Grant, Harry Thurston, Richard Zurawski, Jill MacLean, Sheree Fitch, Sue Goyette, Jessica Grant, Good Reads author Joy Fielding, Lynn Coady (whose new book The Antagonist is up for the Giller Prize), Alexander MacLeod, Don Aker – the list is long.  More than fifty-five writers will captivate their audiences on stages at the Waterfront, on Theodore Tugboat, on the ferry, in the Museum and in Dartmouth.  Into the middle of it all, throw face painting, creating art, reading and listening to stories.  It’s a wonderful mix.

Ultimately, Word on the Street is a family literary celebration. It’s about reading and writing words, and about promoting the love of reading, because the ability to read and write joyfully gives us all a better chance to participate fully in our lives.  Reading makes a difference to us all, and those involved in Word on the Street know this.  Colleen Ritchie knows this, and she speaks with passion about engaging people, of making the festival more than a once a year event.  “And did I mention that it’s free,” she says?